Heirloom is a term used to describe an older variety of plant. Many sources claim that the term "heirloom" means one specific thing or another – claiming the plant variety has to be a certain number of years old or it must be an open pollinated variety – but honestly it's all pretty subjective.
To me an heirloom is simply an older variety worth preserving for one reason or another. This could mean it has a superior taste, texture or growth habit, or even that it is relevant historically or culturally. Most heirloom plants were bred or discovered before the industrialization of agriculture. Of course, being able to rationalize just about anything, that means pretty much every established tree we find is an heirloom.
The tree fruits that we call heirloom come from a time before food was shipped large-scale across the country, and from before we began to expect flawless, uniform fruits from our grocers. With the industrialization of agriculture came the simplification of agriculture and the need for a fruit that could withstand the rigors of shipment, and thus thousands of varieties fell out of favor. The heirloom varieties were lost either due to lack of widespread production, color preferences, susceptibility to disease, non-uniform shape or other, even more obscure reasons. With the loss of these varieties came the loss of entire flavor profiles. Did you know that some apples taste distinctively of grapes? The flavors of the heirloom apple border on obscene, with floral notes, tannins and even hints of terroir.
A sad fact remains that often times these heirloom fruits fell out of flavor simply because of aesthetics. Before the turn of the 20th century, the number of yellow and russeted apples often outnumbered the number of reds and blushes at markets. For some reason, after the world wars, the fell sharply from favor and reds became more and more common. (I hypothesize that it may have to do with the fact that so many people relied heavily on these yellow storing apples to get them through the hard times of war that afterward they sought a change in aesthetic.)A sad example of this color bias is the Red Delicious apple. Here is a link to an article from the Washington Post on the development of the beautiful Red Delicious and its subsequent development into a flavorless orb. This is just one example of how modern breeding has changed the expectations of the public consumers.
If you are unsure of heirloom varieties, try your local farmer's market (look for us, if we're there!) and ask around for older varieties. Small farms often have a few heirloom trees growing "out back" (in fact, you might as well!) and sometimes they bring a few to the market with their regular haul.
Be sure to seek out a few heirlooms and see what you think! Worth preserving? We think so!
